Memoirs from Mr Prince Phwetekele- A guest writer
Memoirs from Mr Prince
Phwetekele- A guest writer
Disclaimer: These
views are those of the author and have nothing to do with the host ie mfumusaka
· · 
10:37pm
THE CONSPIRANCY THEORY FINALLY
COMES TO THE FORE
It is no
longer a secret that DPP and UDF are the latest bed fellows in the latest of
political permutations. After all there was no DPP during the struggle for
multiparty democracy in the early 90s if it were not for the ungrateful Bingu
to break away from the UDF the party that sponsored him to state presidency in
2004. The survival of DPP was however not dependent on the strength of the MCP
nor any other party external to the South but rather to the political
fragmentation of the Southern Region, it political base. The existence of UDF,
PP, New Labour Party, Republican Party, New Republican Party, Chipani Cha
Pfuko, and PPM in this part of our country was a menace to the very survival of
a party that wants to govern this country for as long as the country exists.
Now that the UDF has finally succumbed to the very offshoot that gave it stress
for the past 10 years, and the political demise of all other parties except for
the PPM that only exists in the minds of those who remember it, DPP stands
comfortable to suppress and even crash any move from any quarters beyond its
political jurisdictions. He might be ineloquent, he might be an introvert, he
might look dump but the leadership in the opposition needs not take this man
for a novice or a fool. He knows what he is doing. He started with piecemeal
cabinet that only came on the scene at night. He managed to assemble a full
cabinet with almost three quarters from the South for he was handed a blank
cheque by our constitution and the weak electoral laws of our land. He has
gotten all the criticism from all quarters of the society but he has not
succumbed to any of the pressures piled on him. In other words he has managed
to consolidate his political power in the region where the party enjoys
enormous support using government resources at our watch. He has managed to
flood the foreign missions with his party loyalists. Of late he has even gone
further and unprecedentedly restructured the composition of his party’s national
governing council without fear of any reprisals. Imagine replacing the whole
Secretary General who was elected by the National Convention all in a bid to
strengthen the party in preparation for the 2019 elections. All he sees is not
a Federal System of government ahead but rather the change of the Electoral Law
where there will be need for the winner to muster a 50+1% majority of the votes
cast. He can afford to accord a few important Ministerial positions to some
disgruntled fellas in the North and soothe them as we approach the elections to
silence the region and win a few votes that would keep his party afloat in
power. All this long the opposition is either dancing to the tunes or playing
second fiddle to the DPP. Else it is watching the game on the terraces. Look!
Much as the elections conducted any few months after the general elections does
not measure the popularity of the ruling party but rather how frustrated the
members of opposition have been with the conduct of the general elections, it was
not prudent for the opposition (MCP) to shun the support for their candidates
in Blantyre North and Thyolo East. We expected the leadership to show up in
some of the wards as well as the two constituencies. It would have been big
news for the leadership to canvass votes for the candidates in Blantyre North
and Thyolo East than to leave everything to chance. If a loss of our candidate
was imminent then a loss with substantial number of votes polled would have
measured very well with political stand of the party in the area. I would
assume that no serious voter would do so to a candidate who has no support from
the party’s leadership. When some sections of the society feel isolated by the
party then they will choose to isolate themselves from the party as well. The
wonderful contributions of the party in Parliament ought to be translated into
the rise in popularity on the political front outside it. This does not however
come on a silver platter. Resources permitting, the party needs to move in all
corners of the nation. No one other than the party will sell it to the people.
The biggest threat to the survival of the DPP was the fragmented South which
has finally been closed and sealed. It will only take a united Central Region
and Northern Region with some incursions into the South to unseat the
presidency in the South. However the very external threat to the leadership
from any quarters beyond the South will meet a united South which should make
the strategists in the MCP to be always awake and working! MCP: MCP:MCP
·
10:39pm
MULUZI: THE GENESIS OF THE MESS
WE ARE ROILING IN
Malawi
was a very stable country in terms of peace and calm, law and order for the
first 31 years after independence. We enjoyed peace and tranquility all
through. The levels of education were so admirable in this part of Africa. The
nation was a bread basket for the entire Southern part of our beautiful
continent.
We had
already tried multiparty democracy at the onset of our independence and
resorted to a one party state in 1971. This was however done to ensure that
there was peace and fast tracked development in all sectors of our economy.
There was indeed an attempt to have a secondary school in almost every
district, a district hospital in almost all the districts and many more
infrastructural development too many to mention. The civil service was one of
the most organized and disciplined in this part of Africa. It comprised of very
professional and dedicated people. They were real implementers of the
government policies. Provision of social services to the public was more than
admirable. Rarely were cases reported of deaths from treatable diseases for
medicines were mostly available in all our hospitals.
During
this period it was unheard of for public officers, civil servants who draw
there perks from the Account Number 1 at similar grades, with similar qualifications
and similar experiences getting varied salaries. It was never there, except for
the Public Officers getting an extra 5% owing to the contributory pension in
such organizations. However, it is not uncommon today to find staff of similar
qualifications and similar grades and experiences getting very different
salaries in government. This problem was created by the UDF under Bakili
Muluzi.
This
problem has been there since the dawn of the second multiparty in 1993-1994
where we have first class and second class government servants. It is a problem
that had haunted the Bingu administration, the JB administration and now the
APM needs to decisively deal with it once and for all. My worry however is, we
cannot be using the very same thinking that created this mess to solve it.
For
starters, Hon. Goodall Gondwe was the Economic advisor to the self acclaimed
political engineer- HE Bakili Muluzi during the latter’s reign and today he is
the man in charge of the government purse. He would wish us to believe that he
will be able to lead the implementation of the harmonization process of the
public and mainstream civil service perks. Worse still Muluzi the architect of
this mess is now the political bedfellow of the current state leader, I am not
sure of what pierces of advice will be transfused through between the two on
the same. Those who have been enjoying such preferential treatments feel
tormented that they would be getting salaries similar to those who were
perpetually disadvantaged for they found pleasure in that arrangement.
Government
therefore needed to harmonize the laws that governs such disparities in
personal emoluments before harmonizing the salaries to avoid such backlashes
which are a blow to our fragile economy
Mr
Speaker Sir, I beg to move
·
10:40pm
IN THE RECOMMENDATIONS BY PUBLIC
SERVICE REFORMS COMMISSION
The
following positions were tied to the Presidential Tenure of office; however,
there are observations which need to be addressed before implementation of the
recommendations (i) The Attorney General
(ii) The
Governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi
(iii) The
Chief Secretary to Government
(iv) The
Director General of Malawi Broadcasting Corporation
(v) The
Inspector General of Police
(vi) The
Commander of the Malawi Defense Force
(vii) The
Secretary to the Treasury
(viii)
The Budget Director
(ix) The
Director General of the Anti- Corruption Bureau
(x) The
Commissioner General of the Malawi Revenue Authority
After
going through the above recommendations by the Public Service Reforms
Commission, I have the following observations:
1. Whilst
we are advocating for reduction of Presidential powers, it seems the commission
is being suggestive to us that the President should have much more powers.
Tying the above mentioned position to the Presidential Tenure of Office is
tantamount to institutionalizing corruption, avarice, dictatorship, nepotism,
cronyism and all the vices. What will prevent the President from appointing his
or her henchmen into those positions and commit all the vices above if there is
no oversight responsibility from other arms of government?
2. It
would have been proper that Parliament be given more powers of scrutinizing the
proffered names for appointment into some of the positions above. Would it be
wrong for example to throw two or three names for the position of the Attorney
General where Parliament will approve just one and submit to the State
President for appointment? 3. What would happen to such positions if the
President dies in office, will the successor have to get another set of
officers and since this will not be considered a term to the VP how will the
situation be to the new set of staff? It would be proper if most of the
positions listed above were answerable to Parliament than to the President in a
bid to reduce Presidential powers.
4. If we
would want MBC to be a truly public institution then we do not need the
President to appoint the officer for that position for this compromises with
his or her independence from political influence. The occupant of the position
should be identified through interviews of interested candidates as is the case
with the Director of Declaration of Public Assets.
5. All in
all why don’t we vest the responsibility of filling these positions on
Parliamentary Appointments Committee? As they report to Parliament, the same
body should have the responsibility to discipline them and fire them where necessary.
Mr Speaker, I beg to move
·
10:42pm
GOOD NEWS
It is
GOOD NEWS that the Head of State has seen merit in dropping some of the powers
vested in the office of the Presidency to be appointing the Principal
Secretaries, Grade C (P2) and above and promotion of officers to Grade D and E
(P3 and P4). This task is but junior for the Head of State to have time for, as
reported in The Nation of 22nd January, 2015. There can be no other good news
for the day than this one. This was really promoting politics in Civil Service.
Whilst this is a commendable move, it would be VERY GOOD NEWS if all the
commissions that were set after the dawn of the second multiparty were
dissolved and have one commission THE PUBLISERVICE COMMISSION whose composition
should be drawn from all sectors of the Civil Service as well as the Public
Service. They ought to be people of high integrity and with various educational
backgrounds and experiences. This ought to be the body mandated to conduct
interviews in the Public Service. With this approach, we will have done away
with the prevailing situation of enormous disparities in terms of salaries and
other conditions of service among members of the same qualifications,
experiences and grades but serving in different departments that draw their
perks from the same Account Number One. It will however be the BEST NEWS when
all this is bound and guided by law so that other leaders who will succeed the
current one will not reverse this development without the approval of
Parliament. We should be moving towards a situation whereby the Head of State can
propose names of people to his or her cabinet and Parliament be given the
mandate to scrutinize those names and their CVs, approve some and veto those
that would be deemed inappropriate for such public offices. They will need to
present through Parliament, plans of action to be achieved within their tenure
of office. They ought to be fired only with approval of Parliament as well.
With such an approach we will be able to reduce on providing the Head of State
with a blank cheque where s/he ends up hiring all members of his or her cabinet
from his or her village. Such kinds of reforms are long overdue Mr. Speaker Mr.
Speaker Sir I beg to move!
A LIFE WELL LIVED
“The evil
that men do live after them, the good things are always interred with their
bones,” William Shakespeare. Whilst this view was held true by this renowned
author, the statement means contrary to one Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda, The
Father and Founder of the Malawi Nation. At exactly 4:03 p.m. on a Wednesday
3rd December 1997, the body of Late Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda was interred
into the soils of the City Centre in Lilongwe City, a city he build with his
own hands which the public wanted to be named after him were it not for his
rejection of the proposal.
This was
after he had tirelessly and selflessly worked for the development of this
nation for 31 years. He presided over the nation of hope, a nation that
provided the opportunities for development for there was peace and calm, law
and order.
He
despised tribalism, cronyism, nepotism, regionalism and all those vices that
promote mediocrity among citizens of any nation. This was manifested in the
appointments of Cabinet Ministers, PSs from almost all the regions and
districts across the country. If it were not for this approach to national development,
Kamuzu would not have built Sanjika Palace in Blantyre, he would not have built
College of Medicine in Blantyre, he would not have even thought of building
Chancellor College in Zomba, talk of the Polytechnic, the Kamuzu Bridge in
Chikwawa, Kamuzu College of Nursing and many more infrastructural developments
in both the South and the North of this country. Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda was
a human being born of a woman. He was fallible and was bound to make mistakes.
However those mistakes would not outweigh the benefits the nation got from his
endeavors. It is incumbent upon us to get a cue from the life of this noble son
of the land in continuing with his vision of a united Malawi, a prosperous
Malawi, a peaceful Malawi and a Malawi that is geared towards development in
all of the sectors of her economy.
He
encouraged hard work in whatever fruitful enterprise one does. If you are a
farmer you must work to the best of your knowledge to be the number one farmer,
if you are a teacher you must strive to be a number one teacher and so on and
so forth. This is the spirit that we must endeavor to bequeath to posterity if
we are to register positive developments for our country. Malawi is for all of
us Mr. Speaker Sir, I beg to move
·
10:52pm
THE YOUTHS: A GENERATION FOR THE
FUTURE
A good
measure of a nation’s morality is how it treats its youths. Of late the youths
have become political pawns in political games by unpatriotic politicians in
our country in an effort to achieve their political motives.
Surprisingly,
these politicians never encourage their own sons and daughters to join groups
like young democrats, youth cadets etc in pursuit of their political agendas.
They always endeavour sending their children to top notch private schools where
quality education is assured in anticipation for a better future for them. It
is this group of politicians who have let the quality of education in our
public schools down for they provide very little resources to this category of
institutions when elected into positions of influence. Eventually, most of the
products from such schools fail to get employments on the job market. Such are
mostly the individuals that get subjected to political manipulation by the
unscrupulous politicians. Often such youths are not disciplined and are
violent. They have no choice but to play into the hands of the politicians
because they get handouts from them to live on. To this effect, is it not time
there is legislation in place against the use of handouts by politicians to woo
voters to get elected before 2019?
On the
contrary, youths that participate in politics after their education and out of
their own volition, are an encouragement to political future of any nation.
Such young politicians do not engage in politics due to political inducements
like handouts. These youths are peaceful and non violent.
For some
time now, Malawi has been experiencing an exponential increase in unemployment
rate mostly among the youths. There are a number of factors that have
contributed to the high levels of unemployment among the youths and these
include but not limited to; a) lack of education, b) the rate of population
growth among the youths far exceeding the number of jobs created by the
economy, c) lack of job search capabilities and networks, d) lack of mobility
and resources to look for jobs, e) mismatch between skills obtained and skills
required by the market and f) unfavourable economic conditions. It would be
better if Malawi as a nation endeavored to do the following in a bid to reduce
on the unemployment rate as we forge into the future;
1.Implementation
of youth economic empowerment and entrepreneurship education, promotion and
awareness support program through;
a)Youth
entrepreneurship awareness program and in-school and tertiary entrepreneurship.
This should aim at promoting and creating entrepreneurship awareness targeting
specifically potential young entrepreneurs (including unemployed graduates and
youths) with the aim of encouraging them to consider entrepreneurship as an
alternative vehicle to employment. In addition, through awareness, promote
existing business development support programmes/service available to young
entrepreneurs.
b)It can
also be implemented through in-school and tertiary entrepreneurship education
programme. This must form part of the school curriculum in the Ministry of
Education in all schools and tertiary institutions. It will introduce learners
to the concept of entrepreneurship and to promote self –employment as a
sustainable option of life
2.There
is need for government to introduce National Youth Service. This should be
aimed at engaging the youths in the delivery of services to communities to
promote social cohesion; to inculcate in young people an understanding of their
role in promotion of civic awareness and national reconstruction etc. The key
components of the NYS include; Service: Youth contributing to service delivery;
Learning; Youth accessing learning opportunities to support quality service
delivery and occupation skills; Exit opportunities: youth accessing economic
opportunities such as further learning, formal or self –employment
3.Malawi
Government ought to mainstream the youth in the Financial Support Programmes
and Products. This ought to ensure that the programmes set out clearly the
youths as primary beneficiaries, formulate funding criteria that take
cognizance of the challenges facing the youth, provide clear targets/quotas
that young people to be implemented, monitored, reviewed and reported
accordingly.
4.There
is great need for access to markets and timely payments to the youth
enterprises. As a nation, we need to ensure that the products of the programmes
that benefit the youth entrepreneurs have access to markets. Additionally,
government and the private sector ought to make timely payments to the youth
entrepreneurs that are mostly challenged by lack of timely payments.
It is
time to emphasize on various skills development in our youths than just the
qualifications they attain. High and quality qualifications alone aren't a good
measure of the expected outputs in modern world yet the quality of the various
acquired skill in any area of expertise displayed are. This will in no doubt
change the direction of our path towards national development.
Mr.
Speaker Sir, I beg to move
·
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